Motivation&DriveIdentity as an Artist

Motivation

•N; the driving force by which humans achieve their goals

•N; desire to do; interest or drive

Drive

•N; a strong wish for something

•N; active strength of body or mind

SABER

•Graffiti and Fine Arts

•1976-

•“Every single graffiti writer is a manic depressive, insecure person, because that’s the only thing that makes you want to go out and write on somebody’s shit.”

Biography

•Saber in L.A., California

Work

•Saber describes graffiti as “The largest art movement in the history of time”.

•Some problems with graffiti: transient (can be painted over), nameless (few records), considered illegal in most areas

•Is graffiti a destruction of property or a visual improvement?

•LA River piece

•Size: length of a football field

•97 gallons of paint and 35 nights to complete

On the LA Riverbed...• “Saber was a living legend of Los Angeles graffiti, but when in 1997 he executed the

largest graffiti painting ever created, it made his legend status global at the age of 21. His painting along the sloping cement banks of the Los Angeles River bed measured 250’ x 55’ – nearly the size of an NFL football field – and took 97 gallons of paint and a year of carefully planned nights to complete. Every supply for the LA Riverbed painting had to be hauled over barbed wire and through gangland, then applied without attracting the attention of either the Amtrak or Los Angeles police departments, both of whom patrol the area from the ground and the air. After a year of work, Saber had blown out his knee working on the slanted surface, but completed the painting. His father crept into the desolate area across the River from the giant artwork, and after several chases from gangsters eager to relieve him of his camera, took photos of his son, striding across the surface of his own artwork. Saber is not a small guy, but he doesn’t even fill one of the small holes in the B at the center of his name. The LA Riverbed painting is the centerpiece of Saber’s graffiti career to date, but is one of dozens of pieces that he has executed across the United States (and even a few in Europe) that have become the stuff of graffiti legend, the kind of street fame impossible to build artificially. When the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History made a giant diorama exhibit on the Los Angeles River, it was only fitting to call on Saber to create a monumental piece in it: he was a part of the real thing.”

•Destruction of the LA Riverbed: was painted over (“buffed”) two years ago by decree of city officials

•Undefined- an edit of Shepard Ferry’s work

•Political statements present in both graffiti and fine art works

•“Gold, silver, moon gold leaf, wood”

•SABER’s graffiti is artistically strong, showing a good control of artistic elements and design principles

•Has completed works on canvas and some in three dimensions

Fine Art

•Name still visible on advertisement!

•“Last Stop”, Oil on Canvas

“Tagging is not the same as graffiti art, and...any defacing of property is a felony.”

•Separating “graffiti” from “tagging” allows for new interpretations of street art and a growth in the body of public artwork

•Although most of SABER’s work involves his name, he considers this to be artwork rather than a “tag”; this may be because he works with a “crew” rather than associating himself with a gang and his name is not instantly recognizable due to design

•Images such as American flags, scenes of murders and gang activity, fires, abductions, and “taboo” topics

•SABER’s graffiti is artistically strong, showing a good control of artistic elements and design principles. Does his credibility as a well-known graffiti artist lend his work more meaning?

Process: graffiti

•Team effort; carrying supplies, watching for law enforcement, gang members, etc.

•“Grids” work in mind before applying paint to surface

•Takes longer amount of time due to legal and physical obstacles (LA River piece) as well as size of works

Chuck Close•Photorealism/Superrealism

•July 5, 1940-

• “The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.”

Biography

•Chuck Close with Self Portrait in progress

Work

•Early self portrait:

•Paintings, prints, and photography

•Began with black and white studies of faces

The Incident

•After suffering injury to his spinal cord on December 7, 1988, Close began to do work in a different way, using grids and a higher amount of color

•Work now relies on the viewer to see the object rather than creating something that is necessarily “photorealistic”

Process•Uses grid to map out placement of features

in portraits with help of assistants

•Preliminary media used to create basic shapes and then later filled with paint (oil and acrylic)

•Because of disability, uses a brush attached to his wrist brace and his other hand to keep it steady

•Choice of color: uses various colors based on preference rather than observation

•From a distance, colors perceived as one hue

•Up close, colors composed of dots and shapes of many hues

•Each painting can take up to four months to complete due to labor intensive process

•Due to loss in range of motion of his hand, Close works slowly in order to ensure precision

•“I am going for a level of perfection that is only mine...most of the pleasure is in getting the last little piece perfect” -Chuck Close

Identity

•Both SABER and Close include aspects of their own identity in their work and achieve a photorealistic quality

•SABER: uses name in murals and paints aspects of his residence (Los Angeles)

•Close: self portraits and portraits of family and friends